


Should Have Never Trusted The One-Eyed Man

by lesbomancy



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-06 00:47:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6730672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbomancy/pseuds/lesbomancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leoveria Camidius recounts a little something off that once happened to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Should Have Never Trusted The One-Eyed Man

“You tend to trust the odd hermit or two when you travel Tamriel as much as I do, especially in High Rock. they’ve got the most fantastical assortment of bright, deadly creatures outside of Elsweyr. I was making my way from a local place in the land of knights and magic when an old man, breton and ancient, asked to travel with me. I figure it would be the nice thing to do since he was more or less making sweet love to his walking stick.”

Leo tilted back her glass, draining it completely.

“... so it was a long trip through ‘til we got to Skyrim. He wanted me to drop him off as close to Markarth as I could, which was on the way to where I was going anyway. Figured I’d share some of my food and let him sleep in the back - I’ve got a big hound and two.. moderately stubborn horses who don’t like being handled improperly so if he tried anything he’d get the long end of my sword sticking out the back of his brittle boned rib cage. He was nice, too, a really chatty old codger who went on and on about how he was the master of illusion and he adored traveling the world and he wished he was younger because now he can’t see the splendor of the world as much as he used to. Standard mystical old man shit.

But it sort’ve turned off when he mentioned faeries. He asked me if I was afraid of them and being the matter-of-fact woman that I am I answered him honestly. I told him that I wasn’t afraid of any magical creature so long as it had a method to be warded off or killed by. Figred it was your typical breton magic shittery, the sort of tales that they love to scare their brats into so they do their chores or listen to their elders.”

Her face wrinkled and she worked her jaw, flicking her glass forward so she could lean on the table with both of her arms crossed.

“I’m not completely faultless here with this story. He was asleep one night and I went and had a peak into his bag. Reagents and charms mostly but he did have a bottle of what looked like skooma. I let it sit at the time, figured whatever he needed to commune with nature was between him and the short curly white hairs on his daddy bags. The next day he was different, not vampire different but.. different enough so I had to ask if he was doing okay. All he said the entire day was that he was looking forward to a good meal, that he hadn’t eaten like a king in a long time. Of course I offered the stores of what I had - recently purchased one of those bretonnian cheese wheels with the thick white wax that smears like a soft butter. He didn’t have at it.

The evening after that day the skooma bottle ended up near my tent on the floor, like it were discarded. Being drunk as a nord on his birthday I popped the shit open to get a taste of whatever he was lugging around. Like I said - I’m not blameless in this.”

Leo smiled wide.

“What I saw was the absolutely most crazy assortment of things I’ve ever seen since. I was hallucinating within a few minutes and the world was fucking faeries. Tamriel had nymphs and sprites and good little creatures crawling all around and flying and giggling, playing little pan flutes and dancing with me. I laughed and rocked my pants off until the ol’ hermit decided to give me the old one-two to the back of the head with his walking stick. I believed that a man as old as him couldn’t set me up and I was really, really wrong. I may get my jollies off on the occasional substance but it’s not like I stole his reagents or read his journal.

Which I should’ve. Because when I woke up with the world spinning and the remnants of faeries still fluttering around in the sky he was preparing my own cutlery set to use on me. Old bastard has his hood down finally, has his traveling robes off proper and has a bib pinned around his neck. Son of a cur has Reachman tattoos all over his arms and he’s got my cauldron - a damn decent one which I use for stew - piping hot over a fire. Of course I’m not sure if he’s really going to eat me or if the faeries floating about his head are mind controlling him to rip my heart out for some sort of ritual. It takes about thirty minutes for that confusion to subside when he’s jammed some cloth in my mouth as a gag and is preparing to cut off the juicy bits to start the broth. I’m a muscular woman - I was muscular then. Leo was one big hunk of deliciousness and I can’t rightly blame the man for wanting a piece.

That being said, he was old and I was younger. He also forgot to tie up my feet - not his fault entirely, I was wearing my armor at the time and he didn’t expect me to be up as well as I was. The benefit of military shock training and one too many experiments with whatever someone offers you in a hookah, right? So the codger gets my heel to his chin and as he’s on the ground I whip my legs around his neck, choke the fucker as hard as I can. I can feel him scratching and cutting at my legs and stomach but I also feel him getting weaker with each moment. By the time he’s finally gone and passed out I look like I’ve been assaulted with a rake on most of my lower torso.

I eventually manage my hands free with a little wiggling and I’m stumbling all over looking for my sword to finish the job. Once I find it I finally get a good look at the guy, ready to stab him once in the heart and be done with it. Man looks like he’s half-spriggan or something, bark all over the side of his face, eating up his left eye under the eyepatch he had on it before. Not sure if it was the drug or something but I can feel this being wrong in every way, so immediately I pack up and get my shit in the wagon. It took nearly two hours and that bastard was out like a light for the whole of it. I finally commit to it - figure he knows my name and where I’m going because of all the small talk and he assaulted me, tried to eat me. So I’m in the right with most people.

Drive the sword down into his chest and the man’s robes explode with force. A wild one, knocks me straight on my arse. He’s gone in an instant, like that, flying little forest nymphs shooting out of his clothing until nothing's left but his robe, his bag and his shoes. After that I’m convinced that the Reachmen are fucked, High Rock is fucked and southwestern Skyrim can go lick a dog’s arse. Rode so hard over the next few days I had to give my stallions a break for nearly a full week once I got to Whiterun. Never took that path again.”


End file.
